Moving Files except a few

pccdrussell · 07-21-2007, 08:29 PM

Hello, I am working on a way to try and figure out how to move files to another directory except a few. For example.....

Say I have a directory /home/testuser/stuff and...
1. I have lets say 50 files in that directory...
2. file1, file2, file3,....... file50
3 And I make a direcotry inside ~/stuff called oldstuff
4. Then I want to move all the files in there to oldstuff except files 1 and 2 with one command..

I realize I could move them all in there and then go into "oldstuff" and pull back out the ones I want to the original folder like (#mv file1 file2 ../), but what I am actually doing is working on a more involved than that example, (Just thought that example might help explain better) So I guess Im wondering if there is "except" sort of substitution for the mv command.

Any help would me much appreciated!
Thank You

homey · 07-21-2007, 08:52 PM

Using find with ! seems to work ok.
For example:

Code:

find /home/Image -type f ! \( -name '*.txt' -o -name '*.doc' \) \
-exec mv {} /home/test \;

pccdrussell · 07-21-2007, 09:15 PM

Hello, thanks for the reply. I guess Im still somewhat of a newb. I understand the majority of that command, but not all. However, how would that apply to my example? What if for example, all files in that directory where .txt, and I wanted to move all but file1.txt and file2.txt to the other folder with that command. Would I need a -not? Like for example,

#find /home/testuser/stuff -not \ ( -name "file1.txt" -o "file2.txt" \)-exec mv {} /home/testuser/stuff/oldstuff \;

Could you possibly explain what the ! does for you. Or does that example command seem close?

homey · 07-21-2007, 09:46 PM

The ! is like saying not
Spacing in the command is important, looks like you don't have a space after the last )
When posting code on the forum, it is easier for people to see how your code actually looks if you put it inside code or quote thingys.

The # thing up in the tool bar can be used for code.

pccdrussell · 07-21-2007, 10:08 PM

Thanks alot Homey for all your replies. That was some good info, I will play around with it a bit and see what I come up with. Thanks also for the # tip. I just saw that in the toolbar as I am replying to this.

pccdrussell · 07-21-2007, 10:33 PM

Well shoot, Ive been trying this for the last 15 minutes on a practice run. I made a fake scenario with a folder test and testorig and made a 5 files and tried to move 3 of them but not the first two..... heres, what Im trying...

Code:

find /home/user/Desktop/test/ -type f ! \( -name 'file1' -o -name 'file2' \) \ -exec mv {} /home/user/Desktop/test/testorig/ \;

I am getting this error.....

find: paths must precede expression
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

Any ideas??
Thanks

rupertwh · 07-21-2007, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pccdrussell

Code:

find /home/user/Desktop/test/ -type f ! \( -name 'file1' -o -name 'file2' \) \ -exec mv {} /home/user/Desktop/test/testorig/ \;

there's a stray backslash

pccdrussell · 07-21-2007, 11:03 PM

Im not seeing the stray backslash, ive actually tried it every way taking one out at a time and get a syntax error near unexpected token error. Can you please point out where you think I have it wrong?
Thanks!!

EDIT Sorry, replied to soon. Its the backslash before the "-exec" I thought I tried getting rid of that, but guess not. Thanks to all for your replies, it works great!!